2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread-Part 10.

[diamond]

ok.


who needs caffiene w <> in da house..



if it's true and im right..i will feel terrible.

g nite.

[martha]

Originally Posted by diamond

It's still incumbent upon Barrack to clear his good name.

Why? Because you think so?

You're gonna change your vote?

[toscano]

Originally Posted by diamond

Sarah was.

<>

FAIL

[Dreadsox]

Yep - must be a month left.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by diamond

It's still incumbent upon Barrack to clear his good name.

He is for the common man right?

<>

It is not incumbent upon anyone to respond to absolutely ridiculous allegations made against them by rumor-mongering conspiracy pushers with an obvious agenda.

It should be incumbent upon more people to use common sense when evaluating conspiracy theories.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by Dreadsox

Yep - must be a month left.

The IQs drop and the bullshit gets higher...

[Dreadsox]

Originally Posted by Diemen

It is not incumbent upon anyone to respond to absolutely ridiculous allegations made against them by rumor-mongering conspiracy pushers with an obvious agenda.

It should be incumbent upon more people to use common sense when evaluating conspiracy theories.

I wish you had said something like this a while back.

[Dreadsox]

Originally Posted by BonoVoxSupastar

The IQs drop and the bullshit gets higher...

[Diemen]

Point taken.

[Dreadsox]

I just wish I had been around back in the days of the first Presidential Elections...

I wonder how much bullshit circulated....

[corianderstem]

Oh, lots.

George Washington was rumored to have been seen dancing naked around on a bonfire with some witches.

Adams was accused of having close ties with terrorists marauding bands of Native Americans.

Voter registration groups were accused of submitting registration information for voters such as "Pocahontas" and "The King of England."

[Diemen]

snark

[yolland]

Adams and Jefferson were pretty vicious on each other, despite having been friends.

[diamond]

Originally Posted by Dreadsox

I wish you had said something like this a while back.

oh listen to you, mr jfk conspiracy guy.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Diemen

Give it up diamond. You said that there was only a photoshopped copy. Toscano rightly pointed out that a birth certificate is required to get a passport. Utoo showed you actual pictures of an actual, legitimate copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate (it is not unusual in the slightest to have a copy and not the original of a birth certificate), and your response is to claim that Factcheck.org, an organization recognized on both sides of the aisle for its impartial reporting of the facts, is somehow biased towards Obama?

For someone who just a little while ago said that you hope it's not true, you sure seem to be doing everything you can to ignore evidence that would confirm your supposed hopes.

and yet, those of us who wonder about Little Trigg ...

[A_Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

and yet, those of us who wonder about Little Trigg ...

Are still just as full of it, and should loose the right to play innocent victims of right wing slanders when the low blows are clearly coming from both sides.

[Diemen]

Enough of the conspiracy theories. Reality is interesting enough. Case in point:

McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.

John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had "stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could."

...

Moreover, there was a major financial incentive at play for Timmons. The multi-million dollar oil deal that he was pursuing with the two other lobbyists would only be possible if their efforts to ease sanctions against Iraq were successful.

Maybe McCain should consider vetting people before he brings them into his campaign. It's like someone in his campaign is trying to sabotage the whole thing. Could it be a... a... conspiracy??

[yolland]

Originally Posted by yolland

Adams and Jefferson were pretty vicious on each other, despite having been friends.

CNN - Founding Fathers' Dirty Campaign

Negative campaigning in America was sired by two lifelong friends, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Back in 1776, the dynamic duo combined powers to help claim America's independence, and they had nothing but love and respect for one another. But by 1800, party politics had so distanced the pair that, for the first and last time in U.S. history, a president found himself running against his vice president.

Things got ugly fast. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind."

Back then, presidential candidates didn't actively campaign. In fact, Adams and Jefferson spent much of the election season at their respective homes in Massachusetts and Virginia. But the key difference between the two politicians was that Jefferson hired a hatchet man named James Callendar to do his smearing for him. Adams, on the other hand, considered himself above such tactics. To Jefferson's credit, Callendar proved incredibly effective, convincing many Americans that Adams desperately wanted to attack France. Although the claim was completely untrue, voters bought it, and Jefferson stole the election.

Jefferson paid a price for his dirty campaign tactics, though. Callendar served jail time for the slander he wrote about Adams, and when he emerged from prison in 1801, he felt Jefferson still owed him. After Jefferson did little to appease him, Callendar broke a story in 1802 that had only been a rumor until then--that the President was having an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. In a series of articles, Callendar claimed that Jefferson had lived with Hemings in France and that she had given birth to five of his children. The story plagued Jefferson for the rest of his career. And although generations of historians shrugged off the story as part of Callendar's propaganda, DNA testing in 1998 showed a link between Hemings' descendents and the Jefferson family.

Just as truth persists, however, so does friendship. Twelve years after the vicious election of 1800, Adams and Jefferson began writing letters to each other and became friends again. They remained pen pals for the rest of their lives and passed away on the same day, July 4, 1826. It was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams lived long enough to see his son become president in 1825, but he died before John Quincy Adams lost the presidency to Andrew Jackson in 1828. Fortunately, that meant he didn't have to witness what many historians consider the nastiest contest in American history. The slurs flew back and forth, with John Quincy Adams being labeled a pimp, and Andrew Jackson's wife getting called a slut. As the election progressed, editorials in the American newspapers read more like bathroom graffiti than political commentary. One paper reported that "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!"

What got Americans so fired up? For one thing, many voters felt John Quincy Adams should never have been president in the first place. During the election of 1824, Jackson had won the popular vote but not the electoral vote, so the election was decided by the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, one of the other candidates running for president, threw his support behind Adams. To return the favor, Adams promptly made him secretary of state. Jackson's supporters labeled it "The Corrupt Bargain" and spent the next four years calling Adams a usurper.

Beyond getting the short end of the electoral stick, Andrew Jackson managed to connect with voters via his background--which couldn't have been more different than Adams'. By the time John Quincy was 15, he'd traveled extensively in Europe, mastered several languages, and worked as a translator in the court of Catherine the Great. Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson had none of those privileges. By 15, he'd been kidnapped and beaten by British soldiers, orphaned, and left to fend for himself on the streets of South Carolina. Adams was a Harvard-educated diplomat from a prominent New England family. Jackson was a humble war hero from the rural South who'd never learned to spell. He was the first presidential candidate in American history to really sell himself as a man of the people, and the people loved him for it.

Having been denied their candidate in 1824, the masses were up in arms for Jackson four years later. And though his lack of education and political experience terrified many Adams supporters, that argument didn't hold water for the throngs who lined up to cast their votes for "Old Hickory." Ever since Jackson's decisive victory, no presidential candidate has dared take a step toward the White House without first holding hands with the common man.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

[A_Wanderer]

Jefferson as an atheist (or naturalistic deist) is fine company indeed, he was also one of the first American palaeontologists.

[namkcuR]

Fascinating stuff.

But that Callendar guy did time for smearing the opponent during a campaign? My God, how many people today would be doing time?!